


We'll Carry On

by soul_of_blaze



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Flushed Romance | Matesprits, M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Sadstuck, all of these pairings are implied except Feferi's, in which everyone dies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-11 01:37:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/473027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soul_of_blaze/pseuds/soul_of_blaze
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Your name is Feferi Peixes and you have a lot of great friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Carry On

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by lordcaliborn's piece of art (here: http: //lordcaliborn. tumblr. com/ post / 28320262968 )

Your name is Feferi Peixes and you are six sweeps old. It is a young age for you, for everyone really. Six sweeps and barely an adult troll! You have so many friends and they all invest in each other and you. In fact, it feels like you are all apart of each other. Certainly, you couldn’t live without any of them. Not your matesprit or your moirail or any of them!

You are too interested in pressing your lips to Sollux’s and kicking one of your legs up to notice Eridan standing moodily away. Or Vriska messing with Tavors or Kanaya and Gamzee watching on quietly. But as you smile into the kiss, you can see everyone else. Aradia seems happier than you’ve ever seen, clinging to Equius who, although you think he should be pleased, seems a bit distraught. And then Terezi has her arm hooked around Karkat who seems to be throwing some sort of fit, which is just silly! Nepeta plays with them, giggling.

Pulling away from Sollux, you lean against him with a smile breaking your lips wider. The prospect of becoming Empress to preserve this is becoming a lot better everytime it becomes closer.

But you’re still a kid. And that’s not something you need to think about!

Your name is Feferi Peixes, you are six sweeps old and everything is right in the world.

-

Twelve sweeps hits like some sort of storm. You know it, and everyone knows it, is because of the sudden death of one Karkat Vantas.  No one handles it well in the least. There’s a hollow feeling in your chest. As angry as he was, he was…. he was your  _friend_. It’s the sort of shock to the system that no one expected. There isn’t a rush to do anything, because as old as you are all finally getting… You  _can’t_  do anything.

But the hollow feeling in your chest only grows when you see the way everyone else is. Sollux can’t hold himself up and when you sit with him and try to comfort him, there is such a strange feeling when you finally flick your eyes up to observe the rest of them.

None of them are as alive as they were six sweeps ago. Aradia is much more quieter than she used to be. It’s too a strange sight and when your eyes go to Equius, you don’t think you’ve ever seen him more serious than he is now. The obvious attempt to comfort Nepeta, his moirail, is near heartbreaking. You almost reach to Eridan but the sight of Terezi, standing and staring at her feet stops you. Turning your head is the only way and you look to the others. Vriska is stock still with her eyes trained at her feet like Terezi’s. And…

You don’t think you have ever seen Kanaya cry like this. Such a graceful troll never seemed capable of tears. Tavros eyes are looking up at the girls standing over them and it’s all you can do to not grab Eridan when you see Gamzee.

The death of a quadrant mate is never easy, you think. Especially not one’s moirail.

Twelve sweeps have passed since you entered the world as Feferi Peixes and a chill has set into your world.

-

The next four sweeps pass just as fast. The sixteenth doesn’t hit nearly as hard as your twelfth but… It hits. It hits you when you come to see Sollux one day and he’s more distraught than he was when Karkat died. Your stomach drops. Someone else is gone.

_And this isn’t supposed to happen._

You aren’t supposed to lose your friends like this. _It’s not fair!_

He clings to you like life support, his hands digging into your shoulders. The wails that come from him are not unsurprising. You know it. It was heard four sweeps ago from Gamzee. As you firmly press your face into his chest, you peer at those you can see. Nepeta and Equius cling to each other. Both have lost something now… You don’t know how they carry on so well.

The shaky breath that is taken to look at the others doesn’t help. Eridan is staring at you two from where he stands. He doesn’t understand. Your fellow sea dweller hasn’t been paying so much attention to what’s going on. But you take a look past him. To the nearly royal blooded troll curled up somehow in a much lower blooded troll’s lap. He’s crying and your heart quivers. But it quivers more at the sight of Vriska and Terezi supporting Kanaya, Terezi running a hand through the jade blood’s hair as she lays her head in the other’s lap.

You gather up the heart to admit that you, Feferi Peixes, are sixteen sweeps and you are losing  _far_  too much already.

-

You think you start to find relief until twenty-four sweeps hit. It’s been so long, you forget. You forget how easily they leave. They leave, blinking out from your radar. And they don’t mean it,  _you know_. You know they would stay with you if they could.

But Tavros is gone. He’s gone and there’s nothing you could say or do to console any of them. So you do what you can only think of. Sollux’s arms wind around your shoulders and pull you up against him. You stay like this. You want to stay like this forever, with Eridan sitting at your outstretched feet. You know who will be behind you by now. As always, Equius and Nepeta cling to each other. You think they know.

No. They know.  _They must_. Unlike you and everyone else, who are all fools for trying to live like it wasn’t going to happen; the two know what’s going to come. Eventually, anyway.

There’s something in you that wants to scream at all of them. At how glubbing dumb they are. That clinging to things like Tavros’ wheelchair w _on’t bring him back haven’t they learned that yet_  because you have tried _you have tried so **hard**  for them!_

But who are you. Who are you to keep them from mourning? Vriska can mourn Tavros and so can Gamzee and Kanaya and Terezi can miss Karkat and everyone else.

Because that’s all you really have in the end.

You are Feferi Peixes and you are losing your mind at a mere twenty four sweeps.

-

A longer time passes until you arrive at thirty-seven sweeps register. You think it might finally be time to stop forgetting how fast life really does take. Because he’s  _gone._

He is not next to you like he has been this whole time. And he never will be again.  _You will never see your matesprit again_. Suddenly, the way Terezi and Vriska and Nepeta and Gamzee reacted begins to ache in your heart. It pounds, like pain that you didn’t know existed. Maybe that’s why you don’t register it at first.

While you sob pathetically into Eridan’s chest, his arm thrown around your shoulder while he tries to be the best moirail he can, you finally notice.

The wheelchair is thrown over and something… something  **puddles**  near it. You don’t know why it takes you so long to figure it out. Because, and you know it just as much as any of them do, you were so concerned with him dying. With him leaving. That you didn’t see it coming.

Sollux and Gamzee are gone.

Turning to sob back into Eridan’s chest, you catch a glimmer of the three huddled together. There’s not much more you can take, they can’t take it anymore than you can.

You hope Equius is ready for what’s going to come because even as strong as he is… It hurts.

More than anything, it  _hurts._

You are thirty-seven sweeps, you don’t care about your name anymore and you have finally lost it.

-

The fourty-ninth sweep doesn’t hurt as much. Maybe because so many of them have been lost by now. Maybe because when he died, you stopped caring so much. But you don’t like to think like that. It makes you feel like _her,_  and you don’t wish to ever be  _her_.

Eridan clings to you more than he ever has. You don’t care. You crave being near him now, clutching at his cape for comfort. Seeing Equius in the state he is in, sprawled out on the ground, is not something that registers in your brain. The huddle of girls to your other side is tighter. The wheelchair has been pushed away.

Eridan whispers something to you and you can’t find it in yourself to care what it is.

Fourty-nine sweeps have passed and you feel nothing.

—

So much more time passes by when you hit a hundred-and-thirty-six years. Terezi’s voice is stark against everything else. You don’t think you’ve heard her speak in so long. Eridan’s cape still clutched around your shoulders by his hand, you stare pathetically up at her.

Equius is still curled up on the ground. There’s a certainty in knowing he won’t move. You think you understand. But you have Eridan. You have him and  _that’s_  what keeps you moving through all of their deaths.

Vriska is twisted a bit away from Terezi and the empty spot where Kanaya should be hits you hard in the pit of your stomach.

The sobbing into Eridan’s shoulder is harder this time around

“Wake  _up_! All of you!” Her voice is harsh. But she doesn’t leave. She just stands there, watching you all with angry eyes.

Your name is Feferi and you watch another friend stomp away at a hundred-and-thirty-six sweeps.

-

The smaller silence of a hundred-and-seventy-eight sweeps is not strange. It’s home, in the way that you can’t imagine living in anything else.

You all sit there in the same positions. You clinging, Eridan’s arm thrown over you, Equius curled up on the floor and Vriska sitting and staring at you.

After a moment, you lift your head and let your eyes meet hers.

It’s the four of you now.

You never wanted this.

_You never asked for this._

You are Feferi, you are a hundred-and-seventy-eight and you never wanted more than anything to just give up.

-

The way time passes now is strangely comforting. Two-hundred-and-sixty-three sweeps.  Being curled up in Eridan’s cape is the last way you thought you’d be going through time but occasionally he rakes his fingers through your hair. It’s nice. You think, in the end, that you truly do love him. Because.

Because he is the only one you are going to be able to be with long enough.

And it hurts to think that.

But when you raise your head to look at Vriska and she isn’t there, you collapse against him and listen to Equius’ raspy breathing from behind you both. Eridan’s face is tighter. You think he is mourning.

Your name is Feferi and you cry again for the first time at two-hundred-and-thirty-six sweeps.

-

A lump in your throat tells you that the only noise now is Eridan breathing you. Something tells you that your age is three-hundred-and-eighty-four sweeps. That should not make you feel  _old_. After all, you and he will live a long time. You much longer than him but he’s still here.  **Eridan Ampora**. Still with his arm clutching you to him under his cape.

When you start to cry harder than you have since you were barely sweeps old, he pulls you into him, covers you in his cape and whispers things you can’t hear.

“Eridan?” Your voice is shaky, timid, and weak.

“Yeah, Fef?” His voice is just as shaky and weak, but the gruffness proves more to you than it should. A smile darts your lips for a sliver of a second at being called Fef.

“Please don’t let go,” at that you are practically crushed into his chest. He’s sobbing and you sob with him.

Your name is Fef and you sob with the last person you will ever be attached to at three-hundred-and-eighty-four sweeps.

-

A lot of time passes again. In all the time that passes, you become the Empress of the Alternian Empire. When your reign starts, you feel less effort to make things right. Thinking back to being six weeps makes you stop and wonder how old you are now.

You ask one of the young sea dwellers. They tell you with a confused look that you are six-hundred-and-twelve sweeps. The shock to your system has the troll running and calling for your Advisor. When he comes you are collapsed on the ground and sobbing.

Eridan just picks you up like you are nothing and carries you somewhere.

You sit with him, curled back up in his cape.

He eventually presses his mouth cautiously to your ear. His words are quiet.

“I’ll  _never_  let you go, Fef,” he chokes out to your ear. “ _Even_  when I die.”

You want to tell him so many things. How it has been so long since you saw and knew Karkat Vantas. How you don’t want know what it was like to lose a friend, to lose a matesprit, to watch people you knew lose their quadrant mates.

But you don’t.

You kiss him instead, past pale purple tears and the shock of the servants seated through the area.

Your name is Feferi Peixes and you can’t afford to lose Eridan when you feel _this_  old, when you finally realize what it is to **miss**  someone.

-

You are not old.

This has been said to you by them almost every single time you start to look like you are going to say it.

You are not old; you are barely into your heritage.

You used to laugh at that and tell Eridan at the end of the day. He’d snort and say you were the oldest troll he knew. The laugh that bubbled from your lips to accompany his was real.

When it’s said to you this time, you snort and charge to Eridan’s quarters.

But he’s not there.

_And you know that._

You know that, Feferi Peixes, _stop torturing yourself. You are only being pathetic._

The cape pulled around your neck is never questioned by anyone.

You are eight-hundred-and-eight sweeps and you are  _alone._

-

The girl has spunk. She’s vicious. And you have waited a very long time for this day. For her. 

A much longer time than you ever thought you’d admit to waiting.

She doesn’t defeat you without a struggle because you think that would be rude. But when you collapse to the ground with a smile, the smug smirk on her mouth falls.

When you tell her thank you in the same quiet, shaky and timid voice you once had, she shrieks at you as a  _thousand-and-twenty-five sweeps of pain and longing and sorrow and every other emotion_  you have ever had pour out with you blood.

Your name is Feferi Peixes and you imagine being six sweeps again. 


End file.
